Kurious Knead

Dwell in Australia, just finished chemical engineering degree. I find all sorts of stuff interesting. I'm pretty distractable I guess. Discoveries in nature, physics, space, chemistry - pretty much the whole natural world - get me all sweaty. Crafty human innovations get me grinnin' as well. New and inspiring artists... Interesting folk with interesting outlooks... Crazy sports... Really just looking to be amazed or consumed by a story, no matter what the context. That'll do :)

[kuriousknead]

Gombocs! See wikipedia link for their relation to turtles.

[kuriousknead]

A must see. Also - a nice little quirk if you have a mobile device (iPhone etc.) - you can tilt your device and the panorama will follow your motions, as if to emulate you sitting on top of the buggy and moving your head around. Very neat. 360cities.net is also just a great interactive panorama site in general. I try and make my own panormas using Microsoft's 'photosynth' app on my iPhone. It does a pretty good job too, I'd recommend it.

[kuriousknead]

Pollia condensata - colloquially the 'marble berry'. This berry is of particular interest due to it's shininess and the way it produces its colour. It is in fact the shiniest naturally occurring thing on the planet. It's colour is the result of Bragg reflection which is the same effect occurring a few posts back in the butterfly 'Biomimicry' video. 

[kuriousknead]

Phenomenon known as a sundog or Parhelion where a halo forms around the sun as well as, on occassion, two phantom suns on either side of the halo. This one was photographed at the south pole. 

[kuriousknead]

Ice rainbows! Check the source for a physical explanation. 

[kuriousknead]

Sprites, Blue Jets, Elves, Ball Lightning and St. Elmo's Fire. Bizarre Phenomena overload. All worth a googling.

[jalexxandra-deactivated20160805]

My favorite! 

     Theeeeeeese are the eyes of a Mantis Shrimp (particularly a Peacock one if you want to look up other photos to see their colors)

     They actually are known for having the most complex visionary ability in the entire world. They can see 100,000 colors - which is just about 10 times more than human beings - and they’re also the only creature on Earth that can see in CPL (Circular Polarized Light)

[kuriousknead]

A creative little chameleon getting his camo all wrong.

[kuriousknead]

Fence sitter.

[kuriousknead]

Stephen Wiltshire is an autistic artist from England. He has been dubbed the 'living camera' as a result of his incredible ability to view a landscape and draw it entirely from memory some time after. When he was 11 he drew an aerial view of London which he 'shot' with his mind during a single 15 minute trip in a helicopter. His picture was analysed for its accuracy and unbelievably, it was found to be accurate down to the number of windows in each major building. I found out about Stephen in a doco: "Beautiful Minds: A Voyage into the Brain" which looked at various super-talented autistic savants. There a vids on youtube.

[shouldbedust-deactivated2012010]

[kuriousknead]

The old world 'classical elements': earth, fire, water, air. Funnily enough, despite being wrong in their quest to define the building blocks of the world around them, they did (possibly accidentally) express four phases of matter: solid, energy(or plasma), liquid and gas.

[kuriousknead]

Geese Drafting - Migrating geese are quite aware of certain fluid dynamic effects and they're cluey enough to choreograph themselves in the most energy efficient way when flying in a group.

These V-formations are the result of the birds taking advantage of an effect known as aerodynamic drafting, where the wake of the bird ahead provides an easier way to gain lift for the bird flying diagonally behind. Wikipedia offers a fuller explanation if anyone's interested. 

Race-car drivers and cyclists often take advantage of this effect when racing to reduce energy consumption.

[kuriousknead]

Desert farms. A modern oxymoron I suppose.

[excisions]

In a tiny corner of western Poland a forest of about 400 pine trees grow with a 90 degree bend at the base of their trunks - all bent northward. Surrounded by a larger forest of straight growing pine trees this collection of curved trees, or “Crooked Forest,” is a mystery.

[ohscience-blog]

Weaver ant workers form chains of their own bodies, allowing them to cross wide gaps and pull leaves together during nest construction.

(submission from cicadasymphony)

[kuriousknead]

Biomimicry! Love this topic. Above is a display coined a 'Mirasol' by company Qualcomm who developed the screen. It was said to be inspired by the scales of a butterfly wing. The screen works on the principle that if you have two surfaces (one transparent in front of one reflective) separated by an air-gap and light is shined on to the surfaces, then depending on the size of the air-gap, different wavelengths (or colours) of light will be reflected back.This will give you an image if you use lots of these little plate arrangements plotted next to each other in an array. Qualcomm has actually developed the technology and it is in use commercially (youtube "Qualcomm Mirasol Display"). The beauty of the invention lies in the fact that it is an electro-mechanical system where the distance between the reflective surfaces is manipulated by a voltage. It also doesn't require a back-light and the brightness of the screen only depends on incoming light from the surrounding environment, so it adjusts automatically and uses less power. 

[makkurodokuro-blog]

[kuriousknead]

A dumbo octopus! These creatures of the deep get around by flapping their 'ears' (hence the name) as the traditional means of octopus transport is much more energy consuming. Makes sense when you consider that energy in the deep is harder to come by.